Shoulder injuries lead to pain, prevent people from doing the things they love, and make simple tasks painful. Many will lean on exercises to help them recover from their shoulder injury. But too often, strength exercises lead to slower shoulder injury recovery. We must activate, build endurance, and strengthen the scapular stabilizer muscles. Adding this one step will speed up the recovery from a shoulder injury and prevent re-injury of the shoulder.
The Scapula
The scapula is a triangular-shaped bone that lies on the upper back between the shoulder blades. The muscles of this region collectively refer to themselves as “scapular” or “shoulder blade.” This area has three muscles: trapezius, rhomboid major and minor, and serratus anterior. These muscle groups work together to move various parts of your arms up and down at different angles for varied tasks such as lifting weights overhead or throwing an object across your body.
Often, people overlook the scapular stabilizers, a group of muscles. The common misconception is that the pectoralis major and minor muscles should be the ones to stabilize the shoulder joint. In reality, these muscles are not strong enough to maintain stability for heavy lifts.
Scapular stabilization exercises are a series of movements that use the muscles in your back to support and protect your shoulder. You can perform these exercises many times throughout each day on both sides of the body. Always perform them with caution and awareness, so you know when not to do them or if there is an appropriate time for doing only one side instead of two.
Videos of Each of the Scapular Stabilization Exercises
Here is an exercise from the scapular stabilization exercise program:
What Shoulder Injuries Need to do Scapular Stabilization Exercises
Here is another video I did to explain what shoulder injuries need to add scapular stabilization exercises to their exercise program.
Scapular Stabilization Exercise Program
The scapular stabilization exercise program is a self-care activity. The exercises are designed to strengthen your back, neck, and shoulder muscles that support good posture and help maintain healthy joints.
The Scapular Stabilization Exercise Program can strengthen the shoulder, help correct muscular imbalances and postural abnormalities, and facilitate rehabilitation. The scapula stabilizes against gravity during arm elevation, which is critical in developing the strength of the muscles attached to it and those around it. When there are restrictions with movement at any level of this area (shoulder joint), there may be compensations elsewhere, causing tension throughout other parts of the body, such as neck or back pain. These exercises have been designed specifically for people who work at desk jobs all day where they sit slouched over their keyboard, making them feel hunched over when standing up straight.
HowProgramogram will help you:
This webinar is for fitness professionals who want to understand what scapular stabilization exercises are used in physical therapy. This course will cover basic anatomy related to the shoulder girdle and how structural changes in these tissues can contribute to chronic pain patterns or postural alterations with implications on a range of motion and activity limitations. Programogram will further help you:
- Discover what Scapular Stabilization is;
- Why Scapular Stabilizers are so Important;
- What Muscles Makeup Scapular Stabilization;
- The Causes Why One’s Scapular stabilizers are Not Working;
- Prevent Scapular Stabilization Injury;
- Understand How Exercise Help Rehabilitate Scapular Stabilization Muscles
- Identify exercises that can help; and
- Know Who Should Not Do These Exercises.
INSTRUCTOR: Rick Kaselj – MS., B.Sc., PK, CPT, CEP, CES
Rick Kaselj specializes in exercise rehabilitation, post-rehab, active rehabilitation, therapy, and corrective exercise. He works in one-on-one and group rehabilitation settings, training people who have been injured at work, in car accidents, and during sports activities. His clients and group exercise participants include a wide variety of individuals from healthy and special populations. Rick has given over 233 presentations to 4531 fitness professionals and consumers across Canada while working in rehabilitation centers, physiotherapy clinics, fitness clubs, and personal training studios. Rick recently completed his Master of Science degree focusing on corrective and therapeutic exercises for the rotator cuff. To reach Rick
or learn about his exercise rehabilitation courses, please CLICK HERE.
Other Scapular Exercise Blog Posts
The exercises For Injuries blog is constantly growing. One of the topics I often blog about is scapular exercises. Here are some previews blog posts on the topic that will help you:
You are getting the Most from Your Scapular Exercises – The keys to getting the results you want from the scapular stabilization exercise program.
Quick Way of Assessing Your Client’s Scapula – Key areas that a fitness professional should look at when looking at a client’s scapula.
Rick Kaselj, MS
